Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

46 BanbaBanbaFertility goddess. Celtic (Irish). One of theaspects of the MORRIGAN. A name of the “Sovereigntyof Ireland” to whom the king was marriedin symbolic ceremony. Also a goddess of warcapable of changing shape from girl to hag, andinto birds and animals.See also BADB, ERIU, Fodla, Medb and MAEVE.BanebdjedetRam god. Egyptian (Lower). Possibly concernedwith arbitration, his consort is the fish goddessHATMEHYT. He is the father of HARPOKRATES.According to tradition (Chester Beatty I papyrus)he was called upon to intercede in the contest forthe Egyptian kingdoms between HORUS andSETH. He is placed in some accounts in UpperEgypt on the island of Seheil at the first Nilecataract, but his cult is centered on Mendes inthe Delta region of Lower Egypt [Tell et-Ruba]and is closely linked with the mother of RamesesIII. He is generally depicted in anthropomorphicform, but with the head of a ram.BangaGod of clear waters. Ngbandi [northern DemocraticRepublic of Congo and Central AfricanRepublic]. One of seven gods invoked at daybreak,the creator deity of white-skinned people.BangputysSea god. Pre-Christian Lithuanian. Known as the“god who blows the waves.”Ba-PefChthonic underworld god. Egyptian. An obscuremalevolent deity known from the Old Kingdom(circa 2700 BC) in which he may have enjoyed apriesthood. According to limited referencesamong the Pyramid Texts, he had a cult followingand was associated in some way with pain or spiritualanguish affecting the king.BaphometA medieval deity allegedly worshiped in secret bythe Knights Templar, Baphomet is known fromthe fourteenth century or possibly earlier. Thename may be a corruption of the Islamic founderand prophet, Mahomet, but its etymologyremains unclear. Described by its critics as asource and initiator of evil, some authorities haveplaced the idol of Baphomet at the center of initiationand other magical rituals once practiced bythe Templars. In part it was this tradition thatbrought charges of heresy against the Templars atthe end of the thirteenth and start of the fourteenthcenturies, after which they fell into disgrace.The precise nature of any idolatory isunknown, though there are unsubstantiatedclaims that the image was modeled androgynouslyon that of ARTEMIS of Ephesus.The image of Baphomet was romanticized duringthe nineteenth century by the German antiquarianJosef von Hammer-Purgstall. In apublication entitled Mysterium Baphometis Revelatumhe gave the deity the form either of a severedhead with two faces, bearded or unshaven, or of ablack cat. The bearded figure is depicted in thechurch of St. Merri in Paris. Alternative imageryhas been of an androgynous Satanic goat sittingastride the world with a flaming torch locatedbetween the horns, a star above the eyes, femalebreasts, a reptilian belly surmounted by snakesand goat-like hoofs. This imagery was depicted bythe nineteenth-century romantic interpreter ofoccultism Eliphas Levi, and Baphomet wasadopted subsequently as the tutelary deity of thequasi-magical Ordo Templi Orientis organizationfounded by the twentieth-century Englishoccultist Aleister Crowley.